Posted on 03/16/2015 4:21:19 PM PDT by NYer
“The Democratic Party is facing a Catholic apocalypse,” Patricia Miller warns at Salon.
Her article does a good job of marshaling statistics, but when she assesses the reasons for the apocalypse she makes a critical error.
“White Catholics are now identifying as Republicans by historic margins,” she says, and lists the evidence.
• She cites Pew data showing that 53% of white Catholics favor the GOP, versus 39% who favor Democrats.
• Catholics voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008’s presidential race by 5 percentage points, she says — but chose Mitt Romney over Obama by 19 points four years later, she says.
• The U.S. House has gone from a Catholic Democrat “bastian” in 2009 — with 98 Catholic Democrats and 37 Catholic Republicans to having more Catholic Republicans than Catholic Democrats for the first time ever in 2015 — though only barely; 69 to 68.
• Between 2009 and 2014 the number of white Catholics who thought the White House was unfriendly to religious doubled from 17% to 36%, according to Pew, says Miller.
The article looks for blame for the sudden shift, and offers a few ideas. It could be the bishops who say you can’t support Democrats because of abortion. It could be that left-leaning Catholics are leaving the Church, leaving only “conservative” Catholics in the fold. It could be that bishops (every bishop, by the way) are in her words “demonizing” the HHS mandate — the federal mandate that says Catholic employers must violate their consciences or face crippling fines.
Last, she cites Pew data showing Catholics wanting more conservative spending and immigration policies to say it could be the “Tea Party-ization of white Catholics.”
She is right. It could be any of those outside influences changing the dynamic.
But the only group missing from her list of possible suspects is the most likely culprit: the Democratic Party itself.
First, on abortion, the Democratic Party has changed dramatically. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all started out supporting the right to life. Democrats for Life powerfully make the case that liberals should be pro-life. But the party’s harsh stand against the right to life has left it hemorrhaging people of conscience for a long time.
Princeton’s Robbie George left the party over abortion decades ago. Jo Ann Nardelli, an important Democratic organizer who had close ties to the late Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania over social issues. Bishop Thomas Tobin left in 2013, giving up all hope for reform in the party.
For years, the Clintonian formula allowed Democrats to believe they wanted abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” Kermit Gosnell did away with the “safe” part . The 2012 Democratic platform did away with the “rare” part. Now all that is left is the “legal” part.
Just last week, Democrats killed a bill against human-trafficking because it didn’t pay federal money to abortion businesses. It is hard to accept a party that would do that, and many people simply won’t.
But Miller misses two other key factors in Catholic defections.
First: War.
Catholics don’t only care about abortion. As the Financial Times wrote in 2008, Pennsylvania swung away from the Republicans over the Iraq war.
What did Catholics get for their votes? Under Obama’s watch, U.S. kill teams in Afghanistan made international headlines. The administration’s violence created chaos in Libya and our premature exit from Iraq created an opening for ISIS, and the Obama administration shamefully redefined “civilian” to justify his own drone policy.
Catholics who voted for Obama got more abortion, less religious liberty, and more violence worldwide.
Second: Latinos.
By stressing “white Catholics,” the article doesn’t mention that Latino Catholics are also not a cinch for the Democratic Party.
When party-switcher New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said, “I’ll be damned, we’re Republicans” she was describing a feeling others may be having. Latinos were not the shoe-in they were supposed to be for Democrats last November.
It’s no wonder: Latinos are more pro-life in polls than the general population.
But one thing Miller totally gets right is that the changing dynamic heralds more changes to come.
“The shift in the Catholic vote should really be a wakeup call to the Democrats,” she quotes Democratic activist Steve Krueger saying. “White Catholics are 18 percent of the electorate and Catholics vote 1 to 2 percentage points above their representation in the overall population. This is a significant voting bloc that now perceives Republicans as being more welcoming to people of faith.”
Is pot legal in your state?
Yet, they'll go to the mat defending the immaculate conception. Amazing.
I think you mean Loretta Sanchez, who had dropped her previous name of Loretta Brixey, after losing an election 2 years before running against Dornan.
Well, it nice to know what side you are on. Thanks.
Your posts aren’t making any sense.
To some people, that is the way God indented it.
OK; I hope that trend works out going forward. As a Catholic, I never expected Hispanics to spark any renaissance in the American Catholic Church; in my area many flock to their own storefront churches with married ministers. I don’t even know what denomination they claim.
In my experience Hispanics seem to embrace Catholicism when it provides an educational alternative to public schools for their children; the idea of giving their hard-earned money for any other reason to some guys living in a rectory doesn’t seem to go over well with them.
According to Pew, Mass attendance is the same for Hispanic and non Hispanic white Catholics, but religion is significantly more important to the Hispanic Catholics.
“Latino Catholics and white Catholics, however, report very similar levels of church attendance; 42% of each group say they attend church weekly.”
“There is also a 14-point gap between white, non-Hispanic Catholics and their Hispanic counterparts; 54% and 68%, respectively, say religion is very important in their lives.”
No, you were wrong. Again. You have a strange way of repeatedly failing.
I weigh Mass attendance much more heavily than someone saying religion is important to them; if that had any meaning blacks would probably be the most conservative group in the country.
There is much about blacks that no one can explain, not in their politics, or in their relationship to religion or how they can have obviously disconnected it from God and the bible, it is a total mystery.
But there is real change happening in the Church. It is like the Tea Party. Ground up. I see it happening all around.
And Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm second generation American. County Cork.
First: War.
Second: Latinos.
Third: Muslims.
Anyone with half a brain can see that the Democrats openly support Sharia law and the slaughter of non-Muslims. Catholics, yes, but also Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and everyone else of any faith is watching Democrats applauding and defending a global murder machine called Islam. The writing is on the wall, written in blood. And finally some of these fence-sitters are realizing that their blood is next up on the Democrat agenda.
As the Catholic Encyclopedia states, "By the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the spiritual struggles of the Reformers, the image of Mary had largely eclipsed the centrality of Jesus Christ in the life of believers." (Robert C. Broderick, ed., The Catholic Encyclopedia, revised and updated; NY: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987, pp.32,33)
And which speculates that a further reinforcement of Marian devotion, “was derived from the cult of the angels, which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of the sub-Apostolic age. It seems to have been only as a sequel of some such development that men turned to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. This at least is the common opinion among scholars, though it would perhaps be dangerous to speak too positively. Evidence regarding the popular practice of the early centuries is almost entirely lacking...,” (Catholic Encyclopedia > Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary)
Autocratic presumption excludes the need for actual warrant and conformity to Scripture.
Actually its a web site, with no advertizing etc., not a blog that gets comments or Google AdWords.
Just what is your objection? Do you even understand why blog pimping is censured, and the difference btwn that versus links in comments for substantiation or supplementation? Are you trying to again to find fault after your practice of posting unattributed material and dozens of posts to yourself was criticized? Your criticism was not valid last time, nor is it this time.
The catholic church and politics shows why the catholic church is a dead church. If the catholic church was slightly alive, it would have been excommunicating its apostate members. But because it has lost the ability to do this, this is proof that it has lost being a real church.
I do not care care WHAT 'party' the MORMON church aligns behind; it is STILL a heresy and why any person of Christian or Jewish faith would support it defies the imagination.
Said by both the Axis and the Allies in WWII...
How many did it take to elect Kennedy?
Pelosi?
How many Mormons did it take to elect Harry Reid?
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